How would you rate Dan Slott/ Mark Bagley's Spider-Man?

[Mister Mets]

How would you rate Dan Slott and Mark Bagley's 11 issue run of Spider-Man? Obviously, there are others including Luciano Veccio, penciller for the last issue, as well as the colorists and inkers.

What did you think of the run? What grade would you give it?

[Vegan]

Between Meh and Bad. Adding the extra “zzz”s to Shathra’s dialogue is corny. The rest of the dialogue is as bad as it usually is for Slott. Maybe a bit worse honestly. Spider Boy is a dumb concept. Bagley’s art is the only thing that moves the needle up to passable at times

[Jman27]

I give it a A. End of Spider-verse started off weak but ended strong. The spider boy issues are the best. Overall I enjoyed it that's all that matters

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

C-.

I can't find it now, but IIRC in an interview about the run Slott said he had a Mysterio story he wanted to tell. So I was basically waiting to see what he'd do with the larger Spider-Man world through hopefully 2 years or so, given his own corner of the mythos to play with. The run, unfortunately, was capped off with just 11 issues, and as things developed we got Superior Spider-Man and Spider-Boy ongoings out of the deal.

The End of the Spider-verse was the weakest of the trilogy, IMO. The lack of tie-ins for the story proper hurt it a bit - we were given big happenings and all, but when they have just two or three panels to breathe, it's easy to lose the impact. Much as excessive tie-ins don't help things (like the reader's wallets), up to Spider-Geddon it definitely helped flesh things out, like seeing what Kaine's mission with the "Spider-Force" (maybe we should see these guys back sometime?) and whatnot. Of course, market contraction is a thing so I understand it was out of the creative team's hands.

Shathra herself, at least in her original appearance, is, as the cool kids say nowadays, "pretty cringe" in my opinion. Seeing a villain go after Spider-Man by targetting his sex life just made me facepalm inside. Yes, it makes sense if it happens, and yes, the fact it was done completely straight with nary an ounce of self-awareness didn't make any better. It did, however, land her a very specific feature of being a sort of femme fatale intertwined with sex. When she showed up in Kaine's book, she wasted no time in getting all of the clone babies she could muster. In "End of the Spider-verse", she basically became another multiversal threat more than anything, and lost that uniqueness she had prior.

The Electro three-parter was plenty good, and it's what I was expecting to get out of the book. Bailey half took away from that, though, because the book couldn't focus on a good old grudge match between Electro and Spidey as it needed to setup more of Bailey's own plot. It's understandable, but it also robs some of the fun of the storyline's execution if it had been more straightforward and allowing to focus more on Spidey vs. Electro. The vault scene where he realizes he needed help to take away the gold is priceless. Bailey himself is a character that needs more air-time - I think his introduction's being handled a little too cryptically, with very few bits about his past intersparsed (sp?) and with the flashforwards and his (understandable as it may be) attitude sort of getting in the way to build an appreciation for the character (at least IMO, no less). Building up a new character on decades of continuity is never easy, though, and this method is seldom attempted so I'm not begrudging its growing pains in the slightest. Either way, there is an ongoing to flesh that out now.

Bagley needs no introduction, and I'm happy he's already carved out his name in the pantheon of Spidey artists. I hung around older comic book fans who did little besides scoff at the mention of his name, and I guess that as we became the 'old guard' now (or any guard at all?) positives are outlasting the negatives. Either way, a man who's worked as long and as reliably in this industry was much overdue for that recognition one way or another if you ask me. But even if Bagley is Bagley, his art definitely suffered during End of the Spider-verse, as any artist's would. Especially if they've been long in this game - we all grow old! As Bagley literally had a trial by fire when taking over Amazing in the '90s, doing "Round Robin" with a littany of crowd scenes and guest stars shortly after doing small stories by Michelinie, you know he could take it, though. However, when the story ran low on variant Spider-people, his art saw a tremendous upturn and it's part of why the "What If" story dealing with the erased Spider-Man is a highlight of the run.

I think Slott has already said he plans to cover the plot beats he had planned in the upcoming books, but I'll forever wonder about what could have been in a longer running satellite book more focused on Peter Parker, without Superior or Bailey looming around as more focal points of the story. Mysterio has been steeped into Hell territory for a long while now, and while I don't want to see that brushed away or ignored, much how Otto's appearance in #900 seemed to suggest of his own side dealing with those things, I was wondering how would a storyarc centered on him fare after Spencer's run.

[hobnob]

It is literally Spider-Man and Robin. People will split hairs and say they’re nothing alike and only an idiot would say Spidey is like Bats etc etc etc, but it just comes across as barrel scraping and for that reason alone I haven’t even read scans.

FWIW I rate Slott very highly. I think he’s one of the best writers in the book’s history. (The Man Purse/“It’s you” page is an all-time top 5 page across thousands of Spider-Man issues. It is dripping with the weight of history and pop culture and fandom and a perfect understanding of the two characters, and it’s a laugh out loud moment. It puts a big stupid Spider-Fan smile on my face whenever I finish reading Superior.)

But yeah, my attention is more on the fact that Spider-Man and Robin wasn’t on my Future Of ASM bingo card than the contents of the book itself.

[Aura Blaize]

Gave it an A. They were enjoyable Spider-Man comics. I especially loved the arc afterward where they actually acknowledged that Peter remembers the alternate 616 and they didn't just handwave it away. Even Spider-Boy isn't offensive

[Mister Mets]

It is literally Spider-Man and Robin. People will split hairs and say they’re nothing alike and only an idiot would say Spidey is like Bats etc etc etc, but it just comes across as barrel scraping and for that reason alone I haven’t even read scans.

FWIW I rate Slott very highly. I think he’s one of the best writers in the book’s history. (The Man Purse/“It’s you” page is an all-time top 5 page across thousands of Spider-Man issues. It is dripping with the weight of history and pop culture and fandom and a perfect understanding of the two characters, and it’s a laugh out loud moment. It puts a big stupid Spider-Fan smile on my face whenever I finish reading Superior.)

But yeah, my attention is more on the fact that Spider-Man and Robin wasn’t on my Future Of ASM bingo card than the contents of the book itself.

I'm sorry. Did you grade a comic book you hadn't read?

[Tuck]

Haven't finished it yet, but I really liked the issue with an unpowered Peter.

[Alex_Of_X]

I give it a A. End of Spider-verse started off weak but ended strong. The spider boy issues are the best. Overall I enjoyed it that's all that matters

I'm voting B, cause End of S-Verse didn't hold my attention past issue 2. The Electro story, tho, was primo

[exile001]

I'd give it a C.

End of the Spider-verse really just read like exposition and bullet points until the last few issues, and none of it was particularly engaging to me. The character motivations were all largely just what was needed, so there was little depth. I felt it would have been more interesting at 12 issues to give everything time to breathe and get fleshed out, maybe add a few more character arcs and unexpected twists.

I really liked the Spider-Boy/Electro arc, that felt like Big Time era Slott. Everything about Spider-Boy is exactly my kind of comic book nonsense.

As for the art, everything Bagley has done in the last few years has looked rushed and, frankly, a bit outdated. Everything looks very 2D and a little haphazardly staged, like cardboard cut-outs arranged over the top of each other, and In Spider-Verse in particular there were regular scaling/sizing issues to cram everything in. I'm a big fan of his 90's work, and everything I've seen of Ultimate looked great, but have been disappointed since his return.

I wish this title could have continued for a few years just telling fun Peter-centric stories in its own little corner. That said, I am very much looking forward to Spider-Boy and Superior Spider-Man.

[Frontier]

Bagley's art was fine but I was so done with Spider-Verse stories.

[Matt14teg]

Meh B didn't hate it didn't fall I'm love it.

[JTait]

I've only read the first arc and did not enjoy it. I've had enough of Spider-Verse stories and I don't think that the arc did enough to justify its existence or its length. Bagley's artwork is great as every though and the issues about the alternate Peter Parker were a good read, with some interesting ideas.

I do plan on reading the final 3-4 issues.

[DanMad1977]

Is the book ending? I heard that somewhere.

I hate the Spider-Verse, so I was happy to read that it will end. But it turned out that we have more Spider-chracters running around. I find that awful. Spider-Boy...? OMG, worst idea since Alpha.

[Coop]

Went with a D. Definitely not a Spider-Boy fan. I find his mystery backstory and retroactive insertion into Spider-Man's history a lot more annoying than the character himself. I think the idea would have more potential without this "I was your sidekick for years but you forgot me!" stuff which is frustrating and also feels like it's mainly there to shortcut the kid sidekick endangerment criticisms Slott feels people will have (I don't care. It's a fictional world with fictional realities. I have never been bothered by a Robin or a kid superhero and think it's an inane criticism).

Don't love Slott's dialog or his take on the Spider-Verse. Bagley's art feels weird on 616 Spidey since he spent so long on Ultimate so I wasn't wowed on the art front either.